Basic Roast Chicken

A while back I bought a whole chicken at Kowalski’s. Last Saturday when we were driving home from Duluth I said “Crap. I bought a whole chicken at Kowalski’s and it’s been sitting in the fridge ever since.” It was still good, so that night we ate roast chicken.

The recipe was adjusted from Smitten Kitchen’s adaptation of the Zuni Cafe roast chicken. (click the link. I’m too lazy to re-type it.) I get a lot of my recipes/inspiration from Smitten Kitchen. She’s awesome.

The main thing with this recipe is I didn’t have the extra day to prep the chicken ahead of time. I slid little bits of parsley and rosemary, because those were the herbs I had on hand, under the skin, along with a bunch of garlic cloves. I let the chicken rest for about an hour, then preheated the oven.

The recipe suggested using a cast iron skillet, and preheating it on the stove. I did this, but the skin still stuck to the bottom when it came time to flip. I might try some oil next time.

Also, the recipe had the oven set at 475. This was all fine and dandy for the first half hour, until I opened the oven to flip the bird. Copious amounts of smoke ensued. Smoke alarms went off. Cats hid. Husbands came running into the kitchen yelling “what the f…” A produce bag over the detector and 50 degrees lower later, we were back in business. I reduced the heat to 425 until things had settled down a bit, then increased back to 450 for the rest of the cooking time, which was fine.

A mere hour after I had put it in, the bird came out smelling lovely with a thermometer saying “done” everywhere it should.

Also served with Tahini Squash Chickpea salad, also inspired by SK. Doesn’t photograph nearly as well as it tasted. The high temp kept the breast moist but the skin crispy and the dark meat perfect.

Four days later, and the plastic produce bag is still wrapped around the smoke detector…